While We're Here
by SalingerQuinn
Summary: My husband and I were drifting further and further apart, me, with my difficulty coping, and he, with his never ending one-man search parties. He was wearing himself thin from the inside, out and I was torturing myself with guilt from the outside, in. If we had just stayed home. If it had rained. If I had paid more attention. If, if, if. (Profanity, drug use and violence may occur)
1. Intro- We'll Never Sleep

We were happy. Every day was good. She was the air that we breathed. She was the feelings that we felt. She was the love in our hearts. She was the stars in our eyes. She was our reason to live. We don't have that now. We cannot live. We cannot breathe easy. The stars in our eyes are gone. We don't feel anything anymore. And love? We can't find it.

It has disappeared.

_We know you're out there._

_Our Rory, sweet Rory._

INTRO

"We'll Never Sleep (God Knows We'll Try)"

Mother's P.O.V.

The day I lost my child, was the day I lost myself. I wasn't me anymore. Neither was my husband. As the years went by with no sign of her, we became lost further and further inside of ourselves. Our other daughters had grown older and waged war against each other. We were living in such angst. My sweet, Violet, couldn't stay in the house with us anymore because of all the sadness and screaming. She left us. We neglected her feelings. She hated us. It was a turning point for me. I had to wake up. I had to live for my child, who wasn't there to do it herself. I had to be strong for Eve and Violet. It wasn't fair. My husband and I were drifting further and further apart, me, with my difficulty coping, and he, with his never ending one-man search parties. He was wearing himself thin from the inside, out and I was torturing myself with guilt from the outside, in. _If we had just stayed home. If it had rained. If I had paid more attention. If, if, if. _

I would think those "Ifs" inside of my head every day, every minute, of every hour. But, I knew it was a waste of self damage. I deserved it, though, didn't I? Don't Mothers who lose sight of their children, deserve to be punished by their selves? If you were a Mother, wouldn't you do the same?

8 years had gone by and I didn't realize how broken my family was until the day my daughter, Violet moved out of our house. It was a wake up call. We had to put this behind us and move forward. My husband would soon realize that maybe our daughter was never coming back. It was hard for him to just give up. He couldn't stop. He was losing his mind and I couldn't help but blame myself for that. When I think back on the day my little girl disappeared, I feel a gut wrenching pain that travels throughout my entire body and I get sick to my stomach. Where did she go? How can you take your eyes off someone for no more than 10 seconds, and then the next thing you know, they're gone? How is that possible? How is it possible that none of the other parents or children witnessed it? Was she lured away by someone she knew? She knew better than to talk to strangers, let alone follow them. All of these same questions go through my mind over and over and over again and it just doesn't make sense. None of it. This is why Julian couldn't give up. It didn't make sense to him either. I searched and searched and searched until I couldn't search anymore. I came to a gripping reality that maybe my daughter was dead. Is it horrible just to give up? Yes. But, after 8 years and a solid NOTHING was found, is it horrible, then? Not so much. Our daughter, Violet said something to us before she left and it has been embedded in my brain for eternity. _You have other children who need to be found, too, they're just in plain sight. _ It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized how much we missed out on our older daughters growing up, during all of this. Not only did they lose their baby sister, but they lost themselves too and they were just little girls. How could I be such a horrible Mother? I lost track of my daughter at a park, and my other two daughters became little shadows behind me as I spoke on the phone with detective after detective. I wanted to fall apart. I had never felt such hatred toward myself in my entire life.

Julian was like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hide in his office with his tons of paperwork, newspaper clippings, criminal profiles, books on missing children, and the list goes on. It was heartbreaking. How do you tell your Husband to give up? How do you just tell him to move on and start anew? It was impossible. Julian knew his child was alive. He never talked about her in past-tense. When we would have dinner, he'd still sit out a plate for her, just in case she decided to come home to us. It was tragic, yet brave and no matter his insanity, I loved him for it.

But, I never knew he would actually be right.

She was wearing a red jacket.

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><p><strong>Thank you for taking your time to read. This story is tragic and sad, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Please leave me reviews, which will be my decision to add the next chapter. Let me know how your feels! <strong>

**Thanks,**

**Sal**


	2. Landforms

**Thanks for reading my story. In case anyone is confused about the ages of all the kids, here's a little run down: Brooke's oldest daughter, Evelyn, is the same age as Jamie (18) (We'll just say that Julian and Brooke were together in high school and they had her around the same time Haley had Jamie. Then three years later, they had Violet (15), also around the same time Lucas and Peyton had Sawyer. Then, came Rory (14) and soon after, Haley and Nathan had Lydia, who would be 11 or 12 now. Also can't forget about Quinn and Clay's son, Logan (16) (I'm not sure when they'll come up in this story, but I thought I should add the info just in case.) I know it's not all 100% accurate, so bare with me. It gets a little confusing sometimes trying to get everything perfect, so I'm trying to keep the history situation vague. So, without further ado, present you the first official chapter of While We're Here: "Landforms"**

**Thanks for stickin around!**

**-Sal**

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><p>"Landforms"<p>

**Brooke**

Rory disappeared when she was 6 years old. She had begged and begged for me to take her to the park because the weather was beautiful. Her 10 year old sister, Evelyn, and 7 year old sister, Violet were off with their Father at a movie. Rory wanted to stay with me. I wish she would have gone with them.

We packed a small lunch, and were on our way. Rory's face lit up when she saw the colorful swings and monkey bars.

"_Mommy, can you teach me to do the monkey bars today?" Rory begged in her small, tender voice._

"_Alright. As long as you don't turn into a monkey!" I growled as I took her out of her car seat and placed her feet to the ground. I then began to tickle her belly and we ran to the park bench._

"_Let's eat first, though, bear girl." I changed my tone of voice to be more stern with her. _

"_Mama, please? I wanna play." She looked at me with my own eyes. It was frightening sometimes. Her sweet little droopy baby face got me every time._

"_Okay, okay. But only for 10 minutes, then we have to eat or our bellies will eat us!" I said with a big, wide, smiled expression. Rory giggled and ran to the gravel that surrounded the playground. _

"_Slow down, Roar, you're gonna hurt yourself." I warned._

"_Lift me up." She said with her hands up, and her eyes squinted from the sun._

_I picked her up and her hands grasped the bars._

"_Alright, Rory, you gotta move one hand to the next bar, and then another hand. Can you do it?" I ask. She is so precious._

"_I think so. I think I can do it." She says, with confidence._

_As I have her by her hips, she extends a small, delicate hand to the following bar, and does the same with the next hand. I smile._

"_I'm doing it, Mama!" She says, with pride, in her tiny chipper voice_

_"You sure are, sweet girl!" I cheered on._

_She continued to get better and finally when she was done, I put her on the ground and I high fived her._

"_Yay!" She exclaimed._

"_You did such a good job, honey." I knelt down to her level and put her hair behind her ears._

"_I can't wait to tell Daddy, Eve, and Vi." Just as she said that, my phone in my back pocket rang. I pulled it out to look and sure enough, it was Daddy._

_ "Well, look who's calling? You wanna tell Daddy?" I ask, with a smile. I love when she's happy. I give her the phone._

_ "Hi, Daddy! I climbed the monkey bars all by myself just now!" I hear Julian's happiness through the other end of the phone._

_ "Bye, Daddy, here's Mommy." She handed me the phone, and then ran off._

_ "Hang on a sec, Julian. Rory, stay where you can see me!" I shouted as she ran to the swings. I watched her hop on one, and she began pushing herself. I finally focused my attention on the phone call._

_ "Hey, so how was the movie?" I ask._

_ "Oh, it was great. Little animated girls with buttons for eyes in a psychedelic world, riding on teddy bears with wings. Mind, blown." Julian says sarcastically._

_ "Sounds like an acid trip." I replied with a laugh. I look back over to Rory and she's still swinging._

_ "Well, that was the sole purpose of this movie trip so our daughters could bond with Dad on our first acid trip together." Julian, once again, says sarcastically._

_ "Ha. Ha. You are not funny. But, in all seriousness, make sure you get the girls home soon so they can wash up and get ready for dinner." I demanded in Mom-tone. _

_ "Yes, Master. I'll see you two soon. Love you." Julian replies._

_ "Love you too." I hung up the phone and looked over at the swings and Rory wasn't there. I walk a little closer in hopes that I'd see a little brown haired girl in a red jacket hopping around, but she was nowhere. Panic button is going off. Where is she?_

_ "Rory?!" I shouted throughout the playground. All the parents and children stopped and stared at me. A mother from the playground runs up to me._

_ "Excuse me, is everything okay?" She follows me around as I look up tunnel slides and underneath the wooden planks of the playground._

_ "I can't find my daughter anywhere. She was JUST on the swings and now she's not. She's wearing a red jacket with a hood, black pants with white polka dots and red sneakers. She has long brown hair and um, she was wearing a white little bow in her hair." I'm shaking in fear._

_ "I'm sorry, I haven't seen her. I'll ask my kids." The lady replies._

_ "Thank you." I ran to my car to see if she had gotten inside of it._

_ "Rory!?" I yelled as I opened the door. Nothing._

_ "Where are you!? Rory!?" I shouted as I scoured the parking lot._

_ "Please, Rory, stop scaring Mommy." I yelled as if she was just around the corner. I looked high and low. I checked the bathrooms, underneath picnic tables, inside of other peoples cars, I even checked the public pool. Nothing. No sign of her. I finally started to lose my mind._

_ "Somebody please help me find my daughter!" I screamed and my knees hit the pavement. It hurt, but I didn't care._

_ "Ma'am. We called the police. They're on they're way." A man knelt down and said to me. I just stared at him. _

_I was in shock. I couldn't move. Should I call Julian? Of course I should. But, I don't want to. How do I tell him I lost our kid? What felt like hours, was only about 5 minutes, when the police had arrived. Two of them walked towards me. I couldn't gather myself up. I was frozen._

_ "Ma'am? Can you hear me? We're gonna do everything we can to find your little girl. We just need some information." One of the cops said as his hand rested on my shoulder._

_ "She… she was swinging." I said, with wide, teary eyes in a shock-like state._

_ "She was swinging on the swings over there?" The cop asked. I nod my head._

_ He stood up from being knelt down to me and started talking to his partner. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but heard every few words, "Block off… Ask… Children… Parents… little girl… Father."_

_ Father. I needed to call her Father. What was I going to say?_

_ "I… I need to call my husband. He… he doesn't know."_

_ The phone call was terrible. He didn't understand me. He dropped the girls off at their Uncle Nathan and Aunt Hailey's house and practically drifted in his car to the park. I see him getting out of his car and he starts running towards the chaos. He comes up to me and puts his hands on my shoulders._

_ "Brooke? What is going!? Where is Rory!?" Julian yells in a panic._

_ "She… she was there and then she was… gone. She's… gone, Julian. Gone. I couldn't find her anywhere. I don't know where she is." I put my head in my hands and began sobbing. He embraced me with his arms and began crying. _

_ "What do you mean, she's gone? Like, kidnapped?" Julian looks at one of the cops._

_ "Sir, we're gonna do everything we can. We're gonna call a search party so we have all kinds of eyes and ears on every little piece of land. She might just be lost in the terrain beyond the park._

_ "She couldn't have gotten that far. There's no way. Someone took her. I took my eyes off of her for no more than 10 seconds. She vanished. None of the kids saw her, no parents. It's as if my kid was invisible. She wouldn't have had to time to get her tiny body off the swing, and make a trek into the woods before I'd see her heading into it." I defended and explained._

_ "Mrs. Baker, don't take this wrong way, but is there a chance you may have been looking away for longer than 10 seconds?" One of the cops asked._

_ "Are you kidding me? Why would I lie about that? I was on the phone with my husband, and looked away just for a few seconds. I wasn't neglecting her, Officer!" I was getting upset. _

"_Alright, Miss. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I just have to get the facts straight so I can write up a report. I really do apologize." The cop reassured. _

"_It's okay. I'm sorry; you're just doing your job." I apologized back. The cop nodded and walked away. I looked over at Julian._

"_What are we gonna tell the girls?" I said, worried and scared._

"_I don't know, Brooke. I don't know. Why are we just sitting here? Why aren't we looking for her right now, dammit!?" Julian began yelling._

_I was so mad at myself for not paying better attention to her. This was my entire fault. There was no taking it back. Now, I'm pretty sure my husband hates me. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it._

"_Julian. We can't do anything until they secure the area. We need to call people. Like, Lucas and Peyton. And we need to let Nathan and Haley know what's going on. I have like, 5 missed calls from Hales." I explained as I finally got my phone out of my purse._

_Julian sat back down on the pavement and buried his head in between his knees._

"_Is this really happening right now? This doesn't feel real." Julian states._

"_It doesn't. I'm sorry, Julian, for not paying better attention. I should have been better." I begin to cry. Julian grabs my face, gently._

"_Don't blame yourself. This is not your fault, baby. We're gonna find her, I promise." He reassures me as he kisses the top of my head._

"_We'll find her." He repeats again._

It was the beginning of a nightmare. A never-ending nightmare. And I would never forgive myself.

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><p><strong>Thanks for tuning in! I'll decide soon when to release Chapter 2! Hope you enjoyed it!<strong>

**Thanks,**

**-Sal**


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